


Legendary

by Annie17851



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 18:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3865393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annie17851/pseuds/Annie17851
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Major character death in the past. Forty years after the Winchesters are gone, a scruffy, dark-haired stranger in a bar settles a bet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legendary

**Author's Note:**

> This popped into my head on the way home from the mall today. Had to do it.

Legendary

 

The bar was dark, crowded and smoky, causing the stranger to pause in the doorway momentarily. Dark and crowded he had expected, but not smoky. Cigarettes were pretty much illegal everywhere now but, being a hunter’s bar, that rule apparently held no sway here. Hunters used the underground for obtaining all manner of illegal items, a few bootlegged Marlboros being the least of them. 

He had paused a few seconds too long, holding the old wooden door open and more than a few suspicious pairs of eyes had found their way to him.

He closed the door and made his way to an empty spot at the bar, brushing the dust of the highways out of his dark, unruly hair. Even without the help of a mirror, he knew his hair was sticking up at all angles and would be until he had the chance to take a shower. He almost put a hand on the bar stool he meant to claim, to wipe some of the dirt off that, too, but he thought that might be construed as an insult, so he drew his hand back and placed it on the scratched-up surface of the bar instead.

An elderly woman, yellow-white hair piled up untidily on her head and illegal cigarette perched precariously between her lips, came over to stand in front of him, sharp eyes scrutinizing him, probably trying to decide if she should serve him or have someone throw him out. 

“Help ya?” she asked distrustfully. 

“Evening, Ma’am,” he graveled out, voice a bit rougher than she expected. “Just a beer. Whatever is on tap and a shot of whatever whiskey you reach for first.” 

She tapped the beer and poured the whiskey mechanically and he looked around at the other patrons while he waited. 

Hunters, obviously. Between hunts or getting ready for one. Men and women both, all ages, some of them definitely too young to be in here, but once you took up the hunter’s mantle, all bets were off. You might be dead tonight. No one was paying him the slightest bit of attention, not since he had closed the door behind him, and that was fine with him. He hunted alone now anyway. His hunting partners were long dead, and he only kept on because he had promised them. Promised to protect – well, everyone really. 

“Here ya go,” the woman said, putting his drinks in front of him. “Just passin’ through?” She asked, as he picked up the shot and downed it. 

“Yes,” he replied, voice raspier than usual from the burn of the cheap whiskey she had given him. He pushed the empty shot glass toward her. 

“Another, please. Something better…?” He raised a hand questioningly.

“Mabel. This is my bar.” She informed him. “Got cash?” She asked, apparently unwilling to break out the good stuff before she knew the stranger could pay for it. 

“Of course, Mabel.” He replied, reaching into the pocket of the old-fashioned beige coat and laying some bills on the bar.

Satisfied, she poured him another shot, much better this time, and then took some of his money over to a make-shift cash box. 

He downed the second shot and then turned his attention to nursing the beer. He had never acquired a real taste for it, but somehow it comforted him at those times when he missed them the most. Days like this. Forty years since he lost them forever. His reverie was interrupted when he suddenly became aware of the conversation between four men at a table just behind him, when the word ‘Winchesters’ filtered into his grief-burdened mind. He focused on what they were saying. 

“I don’t think any of that’s true! It’s all urban legends.” 

“I don’t know, man. I've heard these stories since I was a kid.”

“Bedtime stores, that’s all they are.” 

“My Grandpa Garth said he worked with them a few times. The stories he would tell me!” 

“Yea, just that – stories! Do you really believe someone could be rescued right out of Hell? I know we hunt demons for a living, but that’s really stretching it.” 

“I heard a story about them stopping the Apocalypse.” 

“Well, if they did that, why are there still so many demons around? And if they really had some super-secret underground bunker-where is it? Why can’t anyone find it? Huh? Tell me that.”

“I heard they had way better weapons, too. Like the blade Cain used to kill Abel.”

“Bullshit! A Sunday school story.”

“Well, everybody knows about the Colt, right? I heard they even went back in time to look for that.” 

“More bullshit, that time travel crap! The Colt was probably the only real weapon they had, and no one’s seen that in forever.” 

The stranger smiled to himself, thinking of the Colt, safely hidden in the trunk of the old car he drove.

“My Grandpa Garth said they had this awesome knife with inscriptions on it. He said it could kill demons with one cut.” 

“Yea, well if that’s so true, why didn't your Grandpa Garth etch them onto a blade and make one?”

“Probably because he never saw the symbols.”

“He never saw them because it never existed. Mabel, another round!”

“The most ridiculous thing I ever heard – they had an angel. An actual angel and he gave them a special weapon, too. Like, seriously? I would bet good money that none of it ever happened!”

The stranger’s little smile turned into an actual smirk then. He picked up his half-empty beer bottle and turned to face the four men behind him. He could always use some cash. Hunting still didn't pay anything. 

“Gentlemen, are you the wagering kind?”

One of the men laughed, gesturing to the stranger. “Mr. Scruffy here wants to know if we like to bet.”

“Buddy,” one of the others chimed in, “Next to killin’ demons, there’s nothin’ better.” 

“Okay,” the stranger said, getting off his stool and moving to stand next to their bottle-littered table. “Two hundred dollars. That’s only fifty dollars from each of you.” 

“What’s the wager? And do you have two hundred bucks to back it up?”

“I do,” the newcomer replied, pulling some bills out of his pocket. “I won’t need it.” He assured them. 

“So, what’s the bet?”

“I will bet you that I can prove, beyond a doubt, that everything you've heard about the Winchesters is true. That they were, indeed, everything the legends say about them.”

“Nobody’s heard from the Winchesters for forty years or so. You were probably a baby when they disappeared. What could you possibly know?”

“If that’s the case,” the stranger replied, “then you men will all be fifty dollars richer in a minute.” 

“You’re on!” the eldest of the four men declared, setting his beer down determinedly and reaching into his pockets. “Ante up, boys! Easiest money we've ever made!”

He threw some bills into the middle of the table and his companions did likewise. They looked up at the stranger sarcastically.

“Well?” One of the men prompted challengingly. 

The stranger put his beer down on the table and suddenly had some kind of weapon in his hand – silver, with a high polish and a three-sided blade. 

“I am not going to hurt you,” the stranger reassured them, when they looked like they were reaching for weapons themselves. “Just showing you one of those ‘special’ weapons the Winchesters supposedly never had.”

The stranger looked to the left and right of himself, gauging how much empty space was around him, and then straightened up proudly. Palpable thunder filled the air and everyone in the bar turned to look at him, scrambling for weapons, preparing to defend themselves against whatever might be going on over there by the bar. 

The air closest to the stranger shimmered, vibrated, sang. And then there were wings. Actual wings. Huge, black, the most iridescent black any human would ever see, and they spread across the entire width of the bar. 

There was stunned silence, broken only by the sound of the shattering beer glass Mabel dropped in astonishment. 

“No fucking shit!” one of the hunters whispered in awe. The wings disappeared with a smooth, electric whoosh of air. 

The stranger reached over and picked up the money. He spoke, loudly enough so that everyone in the bar could hear him. 

“Everything you have heard is true. The Winchesters existed. They saved the world more than once. They were heroes, saviors. Sam and Dean Winchester are not urban legends. They are legendary.”

He finished his beer and left the bar, got into his polished black antique car, and headed back to the highway.


End file.
